Searching for a national model. Early paths in Italian industrial and artistic-industrial education

Abstract

The paper analyzes in a transnational perspective how industrial and artistic-industrial education was developed by Italian governments and Italian local administrations between 1861 and 1900. Due to liberal economic policy and the high illiteracy rate reached in Southern provinces, industrial and artistic industrial education was not on the Italian political agenda up to 1868. Thereafter, the outcomes sprang out from the Paris Industrial Exposition showed how the establishment of such a school network became pivotal in order to prompt a steady catching-up process. Throughout the following decades, Italian governments reformed the field frequently, looking on the enquiries and the reports teachers and fresh Engineering graduates wrote about European vocational system.